


A Link from Past to Future

by Nuvakwahu



Category: Ace Combat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-15
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:41:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27020665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nuvakwahu/pseuds/Nuvakwahu
Summary: Short Story I wrote for the Ace Combat franchise... a sort of "Behind the Legend" sort of thing.
Kudos: 1





	A Link from Past to Future

A man stumbles through the snow. His left arm in a sling to keep from agitating the stab wound in his back. The bleeding had stopped long ago, stitched together expertly. No doubt the work of his twin brother. The image of his twin's pale face staring lifelessly towards the sky flashed in his mind. Why'd he do it. He could have gone back to their castle home far to the North, across the Sea of Demons where none would dare venture. His brother was so gentle and kind. While the warrior was the embodiment of strength and cruelty, his brother had become something of a philosopher. As the stronger brother trained with the blade, his brother buried his face in books... the Black Armor of the North Sea did not suit his brother's weak and sickly frame in life... but he nonetheless wore it to fight his first... his last battle, and so it would serve as his funeral shroud... the family heirloom buried along with the brother, a testament to the purpose of this final sacrifice. As far as the world was concerned... the mercenary knight so reviled by the world had died that day. It no doubt rejoiced secure by that knowledge.

As he continued to trudge through the snow, a loud roar overhead startles him. A sound like thunder, yet screaming across the sky as if the source were moving. He turns his eyes skyward, thinking god himself had finally come to strike him down for indulging in his demonic reputation. Then something beneath the snow catches his foot, sending him tumbling into the snow. A sharp pain cuts through him from behind... the frozen blood was pushing into his wound, threatening to open it once more. He wants to roll to his side, but he is struck by something.

"I wonder what he saw," he whispered to himself. He reaches towards the sky, "My brother... what did he see in his final moments." Images started flashing through his mind... memories of the time he spent with his sickly and weak brother. The scholar would read his favorite stories, as the warrior would act out the motions described in the books. They'd frequently come across writers who had no idea how to fight, and it showed in their writing. He'd point out the flaws in the technique and his brother would make suggestions in how to write it better... only for the fighter act out those motions as well to show how ridiculous it would look and they'd both laugh. Time went on, and both had changed however. The warrior would get his first taste of actual combat at the age of 16... the thrill of life or death being on the line excited him, it gave him a rush... but soon he found that none that opposed his Lord would meet him on the battlefield, as his victory was all but assured. He would lay siege for days, raining great boulders with his catapults, killing all things, and poisoning the land to get a rise out of his foes to get them to challenge him. But soon, this would drive fear deeper into the hearts of mighty warriors. And so he disavowed his Allegiance to the King of Gracemaria, and sold his service to whoever could afford his rate.

He remembered one night preparing to leave to join an army that was preparing to march against his former Lord. By candlelight, his twin brother confronted him. He could hear his words so clearly in his heart to this day. Not spoken with malice or disgust... but with sorrow. "I thought you had given yourself to greed... but that smile you wear now... I know it well... from our stories. Money could never buy you that smile. You have given yourself fully to blood lust... you are looking forward to fighting your former comrades. You... wear your title in the Court well."

The warrior's hand shook as he held it skyward. "Why... why'd you give your life to save one such as I!" He felt a cracking on his cheek as he furled his brows in anger. "What the hell did you see in me that I have been blind to this whole time!" Slamming his fist into the snow beside him, he felt the frozen tears tumble down the sides of his face.

And for a moment, there was silence. But as seconds turned to minutes, he could hear a low roar... like distant thunder. He tried to ignore it... but then he heard his brother's voice. "Amidst the Blue Skies, a link from past to future, the sheltering wings of the protector." Perhaps he had forgotten what had happened to his brother... perhaps he hoped it was his severed spirit preparing to guide the warrior into the afterlife himself... he forced himself up up and turned around, regret... and a little bit of hope in his heart. 

Instead, he saw someone... a woman standing stoically, short hair framing a look of ferocious determination upon her face. In her hands, an L-shaped object the likes of which he had never seen or heard of before... but she had lined it up with her right eye much like an archer would look down the shaft of their arrow. Her clothing was as strange to him as well... a dull green set of pants and shirt. On her right shoulder, a blue circle with a dog outlined in yellow, and on her left, what he guessed to be a flag with a blue and white horizontal bar forming the body, with six large stars forming a circle that was split between the two. Were these her flag and coat? Was that a weapon... was she a warrior. 

As if by magic, her image dispersed like a dispersing fog as an armored figure stepped through the vision, the mist clinging to the corners of the armor. The gill like appearance of the shoulder and waist guards. The slender, lightly curved katana unsheathed in their hand. The colorful weaving of silk in various basic patterns. They had come a long ways indeed.

"I am Kei Nagase, from far to the east. Identify yourself," the samurai demanded. 

At lease she had learned the local tongue, he thought. "I am... " he stopped himself, questioning the wisdom of giving a name. "Dead, I have come from the grave."

She frowned to this reply, and the warrior realized she wore the same face as the apparition he saw standing in the mist. "You dishonor me with such an evasive reply. I volunteered my name so freely, only for you..."

"To call you Edge... as far as I'm concerned, that's the part of the world you hail from. If I will not let you use my name, then the least I can do is not use yours" he replied arrogantly. He hoped this insult would push her to the point of just ending him already. He was too broken to keep fighting on now.

Her face furled in anger for a moment and she tightened her grip on her sword, and then a mischievous smile spread across her face as she sheathed her weapon. "Then I shall dishonor you in kind, and not just spare you, but force you to live again."

She reached to grab the man's arm and pulled him from where he had fallen. "You who are dead, in time, you will rise again from the ashes as your own Phoenix and blaze a new path. But now, we must leave. Those who hired me had announced that my quarry has been laid low, and though I would have relished a fight against Razgriz in life, I do not dare challenge the vengeful spirit of the Demon Lord of the Round Table. One such as him would only find new power in death."

Hoisting him up over her shoulders, she turned back, tracing her steps back towards the last town she had been to.. Hearing this, the man chuckled a little to himself. This confused the woman for a moment, but thought nothing of it. But in the man's head, he could almost hear his brother's voice. "What I saw in you is a future where you are no longer the Demon of the North Sea... and I gave my life so you may have that chance."


End file.
